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REPLAcma 


Faith 

Copyright,  iQiS.  by  Harper  &  Brothers 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Published  October,  1915 

K-P 


TO    ANNIE 

(MRS.     ROBERT     RIDDELL) 

AS    A    TOKEN     OF    ADMIRATION 

AND     AFFECTION 


M899S5G 


Digitized  by  tlie  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  witii  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcliive.org/details/faithgreatestpowOOmccoricli 


(Tontente 


CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  The  Greatest  Power  in  the  World     .  3 

II.  Faith  a  Necessity 5 

III.  What  is  Faith? 7 

IV.  Faith  More  than  Intellectual  Belief  12 

V.  Faith  an  Emotion 18 

VI.  What  the  New  Testament  Has  to  Say 

About  Faith 19 

VII.  Faith  the  Secret  of  Christ's  Person- 

ality AND  THE  Soul  of  His  Religion  24 

VIII.  The  Healing  Power  of  Faith       ...  27 

IX.  The  Importance  of  Faith's  Object        .  41 

X.  The  Power  of  Faith  to  Conquer  Bad 

Habits 45 

XI.  Faith's  Power  to  Transfigure  the  Past  51 

XII.  Faith  the  Motive  Power  of  Work     .  53 

XIII.  Faith  the  Conquerer  of  Fear      ...  56 

XIV.  How  to  Get  Faith 66 

XV.  Faith  in  Human  Nature 74 

XVI.  Christ  or  Nietzsche? 76 

XVII.  Faith  in  the  Powers  of  the  Soul    .     .  77 

XVIII.  What  the  Prayer  of  Faith  Can  Do   .     .  79 


^FoT  mavbB  well-being  faith  is  properly  the 
one  thing  needful.  With  it  martyr Sy  otherioise 
weaky  can  cheerfully  endure  the  shame  and  the 
cross,  and  without  it  worldlings  puke  up  their 
sick  existence  by  suicide  in  the  midst  of  luxury.^* 

Carlyle 


raitb 


The  Greatest  Power  in  the  World 

HMONG  the  questions  which 
profoundly  aflfect  Kfe  and 
thought,  perhaps  none  has 
been  more  bitterly  contested,  none 
more  darkened  by  empty  words,  than 
the  one  which  we  have  undertaken  to 
discuss.  Preachers,  theologians,  and 
philosophers  have  in  time  past  ex- 
hausted their  energies  in  trying  to  de- 
fine faith,  to  distinguish  the  various 
kinds  of  faith,  and  to  show  how  the 
highest  conception  which  they  have 

3 


Ifaitb 

been  able  to  form  of  it  is  related  to  the 
authority  of  persons  and  institutions, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  to  the  activity  of 
reason,  on  the  other.  To-day  we  dis- 
trust the  systems  of  the  past,  and  we 
prefer  to  begin  with  the  facts  of  hu- 
man nature  as  we  find  them.  And  so 
the  student  of  mind  takes  up  the  prob- 
lem, and  he  seeks  to  discover  how  faith 
comes  to  be,  with  what  elements  in  the 
inner  life  it  is  most  deeply  intertwined, 
and  what  meaning  it  has  for  the  devel- 
opment of  personality. 

The  rise  of  mystical  and  healing 
cults  which  magnify  the  worth  and 
power  of  faith  has  brought  home  to  us 
the  vital  bearing  which  it  has  on  our 
individual  and  social  welfare.  It  is 
no  longer  possible  to  dismiss  these 
movements  with  a  smile,  for  their 
achievements  are  beyond  all  question. 
Not  only  so,  but  the  most  rigidly  sci- 


jTaltb 

entific  medical  experts  no  longer  doubt 
that  faith  acts  like  a  real  force,  and 
within  limits  dissipates  diseased  or  dis- 
ordered states.  It  is  obvious  that  one 
of  the  most  pressing  questions  of  our 
time,  one  which  has  not  only  a  theo- 
retical interest,  but  bears  vitally  upon 
life  and  happiness,  is,  "What  is  faith?" 

II 

Faith  a  Necessity 

Some  kind  of  answer  to  this  ques- 
tion every  man  sooner  or  later  must 
attempt.  It  is  true  that  we  may  try 
to  expel  faith  from  our  scheme  of  life 
and  to  rule  our  days  by  purely  rational 
considerations.  But  again  and  again, 
as  history  shows,  nature  takes  her  re- 
venge, and  faith  returns  with  over- 
whelming force,  setting  at  naught  all 
our  carefully  constructed  utilities  and 


faitb 

rationalisms.  The  age  of  Enlighten- 
ment in  Germany  in  the  eighteenth 
century  vanished  before  the  mystical 
fervor  of  a  romantic  idealism  which 
made  man  a  child  of  the  Eternal,  and 
his  whole  history  a  glorious  spiritual 
adventure.  And  in  our  own  time,  af- 
ter the  dreary  reign  of  materialism  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, faith  is  once  more  coming  to  its 
own,  in  a  revived  interest  in  the  super- 
sensible world,  in  a  renewed  belief  in 
prayer,  in  the  discontent  of  organized 
Christianity  with  its  achievements, 
and  in  such  movements  as  Psychical 
Research,  which  is  slowly  but  surely 
undermining  the  fortress  of  prejudice 
and  mental  inertia.  Once  more  the 
truth  is  being  brought  home  to  us  that 
some  kind  of  faith  a  man  must  have 
if  he  is  to  preserve  his  intellectual  and 
moral  integrity. 

6 


3faitb 

III 

What  is  Faith? 

Unhappily,  the  moment  we  ask  the 
question,  What  is  faith?  we  are  met 
by  a  great  variety  of  discordant  an- 
swers. The  theological  dogmatist  tells 
us  that  faith  is  the  conviction  of  the 
truth  of  ideas  that  by  their  very  na- 
ture are  beyond  reason,  and  so  incom- 
prehensible. Hence  the  popular  no- 
tion that  faith  is  simply  credulity; 
that  is,  belief  in  the  unreasonable. 
The  mystic  tells  us  that  faith  is  the 
direct  consciousness  on  the  part  of  the 
finite  soul  of  the  Infinite  Soul,  the  im- 
mediate vision  of  spiritual  reality. 
The  eye  of  the  soul  sees  the  Divine 
just  as  the  eye  of  the  body  apprehends 
the  colors  of  earth  and  sky.  The 
pragmatist,  renouncing  the  intellectu- 
alism  of  the  past,  sees  in  faith  an  act 

7 


Ifaitb 

of  will,  done  in  obedience  to  impera- 
tive needs,  an  act  which  justifies  itself 
by  the  practical  good  which  is  its  out- 
come. And  so  it  happens  that  many 
turn  away  from  the  whole  matter  in 
discouragement,  and  live  as  they  best 
can,  now  under  the  impulse  of  faith, 
and  again  acting  from  an  opposite 
conviction,  with  the  result  that  all 
about  us  we  see  lives  that  are  ineffec- 
tive, unsatisfying,  and  unattractive. 
A  little  reflection,  however,  will  show 
us  that  we  need  not  surrender  to  this 
counsel  of  despair.  For  we  may  find 
that  the  dogmatist,  the  mystic,  and 
the  pragmatist  have  fastened  the  eye 
simply  upon  aspects  of  the  truth,  but 
that  the  truth  itself  is  more  primary 
and  more  fundamental  than  any  of 
these  abstractions  from  it. 

Let  us  begin,  then,  by  looking  at 
faith  as  a  fact  of  ordinary  every-day 

8 
I  1 


yaitb 

experience.  It  cannot  be  too  often 
asserted  that  religious  faith,  consid- 
ered as  an  act  of  the  human  spirit, 
does  not  differ  from  faith  in  any  other 
province  of  life.  It  is  not  something 
added  on  externally,  as  it  were,  to 
man's  nature.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
the  outflowering  of  all  his  powers. 
Faith,  in  the  broadest  sense  of  the 
word,  is  a  natural  endowment,  so 
that  without  it  man  would  scarcely 
be  man.  As  to  its  nature,  it  is  at 
once  an  intellectual  act,  an  atti- 
tude of  will  and  a  state  of  feeling. 
And  yet  in  germ  it  is  more  funda- 
mental than  these,  issuing  out  of 
the  deepest  recesses  of  our  nature, 
and  spreading  itself  out  over  the 
whole  extent  of  our  being.  One  may 
say  that  it  is  a  kind  of  instinct,  like 
the  instinct  of  self-preservation;  and 
yet  it  is  not  merely  instinct,  for  it 

^  9 


Ifaitb 

reveals,  when  developed,  elements  of 
mind  and  will. 

The  child  has  faith  in  his  parent, 
the  pupil  in  his  teacher,  the  patient 
in  his  physician,  the  patriot  in  his 
country,  the  philosopher  in  the  imma- 
nent reason  of  the  universe.  Yet  in 
all  these  relations  there  is  much  to 
contradict  the  faith,  much  to  make  it 
incredible  to  the  eye  of  the  discursive 
understanding.  Still  the  faith  cannot 
be  overborne.  For  it  goes  back  into 
that  mysterious  region  whence  come 
the  vital  impulses  of  our  nature. 
Faith  is  thus  sustained  by  hidden 
forces  that  make  it  triumphant  over 
all  obstacles.  Take,  for  example, 
faith  in  democracy.  One  of  the  sad- 
dest features  of  our  age  is  the  decay 
of  this  faith  among  young  people,  for 
which  perhaps  our  colleges  and  uni- 
versities are  in  some  degree  to  blame 

10 


3fa!tb 

On  the  other  hand,  it  was  never  so 
strong  as  now  among  persons  of  ma- 
turer  age.  The  man  who  has  once 
been  possessed  by  this  high  trust  in 
humanity  can  never  lose  its  noble 
inspiration.  His  faith  is  not  blind,  for 
faith  is  not  the  absence,  but  the  pres- 
ence, of  vision.<  He  sees  the  coarseness 
and  the  commonness  of  popular  rule. 
He  marks  how  often  its  leaders  are 
demagogues,  inspired  by  corrupt  mo- 
tives; how,  under  the  guise  of  advanc- 
ing the  doctrine  of  equality,  its  advo- 
cates meet  culture  and  refinement 
only  with  jealous  contempt.  Yet  he 
believes  in  democracy,  for  he  believes 
in  freedom,  in  humanity,  and  in  the 
goodness  of  man's  fundamental  in- 
stincts. Did  he  not  so  believe,  he 
would  fall  into  self-despair.  Psycho- 
logically considered,  the  act  of  faith 

in  religion  is  the  same  as  in  the  polit 
11 


f  aitb 

ical  or  social  sphere,  only  now  it  enters 
into  a  new  realm,  works  more  pro- 
foundly, stirs  vivifying  emotions,  ele- 
vates the  whole  man  to  unsuspected 
levels  of  power  and  efficiency. 

IV 

Faith    More    than    Intellectual 
Belief 

Here,  again,  we  are  confronted  with 
many  perplexities.  One  results  from 
the  confusion  of  faith  with  belief 
or  assent  to  a  proposition.  Belief  is 
an  intellectual  act  whereby  the  mind 
accepts  a  thing  as  true,  whether  on  the 
ground  of  authority  or  reasoning,  or 
simply  because  as  yet  there  is  no  cause 
to  question  it.  But  the  view  that 
belief  and  faith  are  synonymous  terms 
is  so  deeply  rooted  in  the  popular 
consciousness  that  to  assert  a  pro 

12 

■I  =3' 


found  distinction  between  them  is  to 
incur  the  odium  of  an  overstrained 
subtlety.  The  importance  of  the  dis- 
tinction does  not,  of  course,  lie  in  the 
words,  but  in  the  conceptions  which 
they  represent.  We  can,  if  we  please, 
substitute  for  the  word  ^' faith"  the 
word  *'.trust,"  or  the  phrase  "fidelity 
of  will";  and  for  the  word  "belief" 
the  phrase  "assent  to  a  proposition." 
What  is  to  be  noted  is  that  when  we 
speak  here  of  faith  we  are  not  speak- 
ing of  an  act  that  is  merely  intellectual 
in  character. 

Unhappily,  when  the  term  "faith" 
is  used,  whether  by  believers  or  un- 
believers, it  is  too  often  referred  to  a 
body  of  objective  beliefs  as  formu- 
lated in  creeds  or  confessions,  or  as 
set  forth  in  traditional  doctrines. 
Hence,  one  of  the  most  wide-spread 
errors  in  Christendom  is  to  be  found 

13 


Ifaitb 

in  the  impression  that  before  we  can 
experience  the  redeeming  and  upHft- 
ing  quaUty  of  faith  we  must  accept  a 
series  of  dogmas  which  have  a  long 
history  and  require  a  high  degree  of 
intellectual  power  to  make  them  in- 
telligible. We  are  told  that  we  must 
accept  these  whether  as  taught  by  the 
Church  or  by  theological  experts  who 
have  gathered  them  from  the  Bible, 
and  then  we  shall  be  in  a  position  to 
feel  the  glow  and  warmth  of  faith. 
Now  it  cannot  be  too  often  insisted 
upon  that  a  man  may  believe  all  the 
Articles  of  all  the  creeds,  and  be  con- 
vinced of  the  historical  truth  of  all 
the  miracles  recorded  in  the  Bible, 
and  yet  be  devoid  of  faith  in  the  sense 
in  which  the  New  Testament  writers 
explain  the  word.  ^'  The  devils  believe 
and  tremble."  That  is,  their  belief 
has  no  ethical  eflFect.    It  creates  fear, 

14 

I  =3' 


Jfaitb 

wjhidi  is  the  negation  of  faith  or  trust, 
though  doubtless  if  they  did  not 
beheve  their  fear  would  be  still 
greater.     As  Auguste  Sabatier  says: 

That  which  saves  the  soul  is  faith,  and  not 
belief  (i.e.,  assent  to  a  proposition).  God 
demands  the  heart  of  man,  because  the  heart 
once  gained  and  changed,  all  the  rest  follows; 
while  the  gift  of  the  rest  without  the  heart  is 
only  a  seeming,  and  leaves  the  man  in  his 
first  estate.^ 

Faith,  or  fidelity  of  will,  therefore, 
includes  belief,  but  goes  beyond  it. 
Hence  we  speak  of  the  "venture  of 
faith."  A  cold  intellectual  belief 
achieves  nothing,  has  no  dynamic 
quality,  whereas  what  we  mean  by 
faith  implies  a  readiness  to  act;  to 
take  a  certain  risk;  to  feel  the  joy  of 
self -surrender;  to  commit  ourselves 
enthusiastically    to   the   truth    of    a 

1  The  Religions  of  Authority  and  the  Religions  of  the 
Spirit,  p.  335. 

15 


Ifaltb 

principle  or  the  goodness  of  a  person. 
It  is  a  profound  saying  of  ancient 
Indian  wisdom  that  every  one  derives 
his  faith  from  the  inmost  tendency  of 
his  heart.  "The  man  is  that  which 
he  has  faith  in."  It  is  true,  indeed, 
that  there  is  in  all  faith  an  intellectual 
activity.  A  feeling  of  certitude  would 
be  a  blind  and  irrational  impulse 
without  a  notion  of  what  the  certitude 
is  about.  In  other  words,  faith  must 
have  some  thought  to  embrace.  While 
I  say  that  I  believe  in  God,  my 
thoughts  about  God  may  be  of  the 
vaguest  description.  He  may  be  to 
me  simply  Natural  Law,  or  the  gen- 
eral tendency  of  things,  or  Mr.  Ber- 
nard Shaw's  Life-force,  or  the  cosmic 
consciousness  consisting  of  the  aggre- 
gate of  all  human  consciousnesses.  Or, 
on  the  other  hand,  I  may  have  a  more 
concrete  idea  of  Him,  gathered  from  L 

16 

■r  = 


jfaitft 

the  life  and  work  of  Jesus  Christ. 
But  some  kind  of  notion  I  must  have 
if  faith  is  really  to  energize. 

Still,  however,  the  earnest  seeker 
after  truth  is  puzzled  by  the  different 
kinds  of  faith,  as,  for  example,  "his- 
torical" faith,  which  is  concerned 
with  our  belief  in  past  events,  at- 
tested by  witnesses;  and  "saving 
faith,''  which  is  the  only  kind  of  faith 
that  can  please  God  or  win  salvation. 
So  that  the  doubt  is  often  suggested, 
"Have  I  the  right  kind  of  faith.?" 
It  has  become  a  commonplace  to  say 
that  we  are  living  in  an  age  of  skepti- 
cism, that  the  atmosphere  which  we 
breathe  is  hostile  to  Christian  ideas 
and  ideals.  This,  I  believe,  is  to  mis- 
conceive the  real  tendencies  of  the 
time.  There  are  many  who  pass  for 
pessimists  or  cynics  or  skeptics,  who 
would  gladly  sacrifice  all  they  have, 

17 


Ifaitfo 

including  a  considerable  portion  of 
their  knowledge  of  the  material  world, 
if  only  therewith  they  could  buy  the 
hidden  treasure  of  faith.  But  this 
treasure  is  neither  in  the  heavens,  so 
that  we  must  ascend  to  bring  it  down, 
nor  in  the  abyss,  that  we  must  descend 
to  bring  it  up — ^but  in  our  hearts,  in 
the  deepest  place  of  the  soul  and  to  be 
found  of  all  who  retire  into  the  inner 
world,  where  the  finite  mingles  with  the 
Infinite. 

V 

Faith  an  Emotion 
Hence  in  all  faith  there  is  the  ele- 
ment of  emotion,  which  vivifies  the 
idea,  gives  it  reality  and  motive 
power.  As  the  bird,  supported  on  its 
wings,  surmounts  obstacles  otherwise 
insurmountable,  so  faith  is  enabled 
by  its  emotional  tone  to  achieve  what 
seems  impossible.    Here  is  to  be  found 


18 


raitb 

the  weakness  and  strength  of  popular 
revivalism.  It  is  weak  in  so  far  as 
an  overstrained  emotionalism  ends 
sometimes  in  a  terrible  reaction  of 
despair  leading  to  deep  moral  degrada- 
tion; it  is  strong  in  so  far  as  the  emo- 
tional power  generated  by  the  appeal 
of  the  preacher  and  the  mass-sugges- 
tion of  the  crowd  sweeps  away  ancient 
inhibitions  and  sets  in  new  direc- 
tions the  energies  of  will  and  thought. 
One  of  the  great  needs  of  the  age  is  a 
rational  and  realistic  evangelism  which 
will  know  how  to  stir  the  deepest  emo- 
tions without  at  the  same  time  forget- 
ting the  claims  of  the  rational  will. 

VI 

What  the  New  Testament  Has  to 
Say  About  Faith 

When  we  turn  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment  we   find   no   uniform   view   of 

19 


faitb 

faith.  No  attempt  at  a  formal  defini- 
tion of  it  is  made.  It  is  like  life, 
which  cannot  be  defined  in  terms  of 
something  deeper  than  itself.  The 
New  Testament  does  not  give  us  a 
formal  theory  of  faith,  but  exhibits  it 
in  action  as  a  concrete  living  process. 
St.  Paul  sees  in  faith  the  renuncia- 
tion of  one's  own  worth  or  merit,  the 
trust  of  the  soul  in  God  or  in  Christ  as 
the  revealer  of  God,  a  trust  which  is  at 
once  passive  and  active,  receiving  an 
influx  of  divine  energy,  yet  trans- 
forming this  energy  into  deeds  of 
goodness  and  sacrifice  in  the  world  of 
practical  affairs.  This  faith  begins  in 
self-surrender  to  Christ,  and  it  ends 
in  a  mystical  union  which  defies  all 
the  shocks  of  this  world  and  of  the 
world  beyond  the  grave.  The  philo- 
sophical idealist,  whose  name  history 
has  not  preserved,   who   wrote  the  L 

20 


jfaitb 

Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  thinks  of 
faith  in  the  widest  and  most  human 
terms.  For  him  it  is  a  creative 
energy  of  mind  which  elevates  man 
above  the  phenomenal  world  to  the 
sphere  of  eternal  realities,  which  en- 
dows the  future  with  something  of  the 
overpowering  force  of  the  immediate 
present.  Hence  man,  as  the  citizen 
of  the  world  of  sense  and  time,  is 
made  by  his  faith  the  citizen  of  an- 
other and  a  higher  world.  Faith,  that 
is  to  say,  abolishes  the  barriers  of  the 
visible  and  invisible,  of  the  temporal 
and  the  eternal,  of  the  present  and 
the  future.  The  author  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  conceives  of  faith  as  a  work, 
a  great  mystical  achievement  of  the 
soul,  whereby  the  divine  life  is  en- 
abled to  energize  and  to  bring  forth 
the  graces  and  virtues  of  the  Christ- 
spirit.     Running  through  these  dif- 

21 

i  =3- 


Ifaitb 

ferent  conceptions,  which  have  been 
rather  hinted  at  than  fully  stated, 
there  is  a  thread  which  gives  them 
unity  and  harmony.  This  thread  is 
the  idea  of  trust  or  confidence.  Every- 
where in  the  New  Testament  the 
word  translated'  "faith"  implies  a 
going  forth  of  the  spirit  in  trustful 
self-surrender  toward  a  person  or  a 
principle  worthy  of  the  soul's  rever- 
ence. 

But  what  concerns  us  most  is  the 
way  in  which  the  Founder  of  the 
Christian  religion  loved  to  think  of 
faith.  There  is  an  utterance  of  His 
which  here  deserves  special  attention: 

If  ye  have  faith  as  a  grain  of  mustard-seed 
ye  shall  say  to  this  mountain,  Remove  hence 
to  yonder  place;  and  it  shall  remove;  and 
nothing  shall  be  impossible  unto  you.^ 

*  Matthew  xvii,  20.  Cp.  Luke  xvii,  6.  Matthew 
preserves  the  form  as  it  stood  m  Q.»  a  document  now 
lost,  but  standing  behind  our  present  Gospels. 

22 


yaitb 

This  saying,  apart  from  the  fact 
that  it  belonged  to  one  of  the  ear- 
liest sources  from  which  our  present 
Gospels  are  compiled,  is  too  bold, 
too  sublime,  too  daring  in  its  trust 
in  the  spirituality  of  the  universe, 
to  admit  of  any  lesser  authorship. 
The  faith  capable  of  working  these 
wonders  is,  of  course,  not  a  mere 
holding  something  for  true,  nor  that 
state  of  mind  which  in  the  case  of 
so  many  of  us  passes  for  faith  —  a 
mere  believing  that  we  believe.  On 
the  contrary,  it  is  an  unreserved 
confidence  in  a  boundless  Power 
which  is  at  the  same  time  bound- 
less Love,  a  giving  up  of  our  own 
narrow  and  constricted  self  in  order 
to  share  the  triumphant  energy  of 
a  larger  self  that  is  at  once  the 
unifying  principle  of  nature  and  of 
man. 

23 


ffaitb 

VII 

Faith  the  Secret  of  Christ's  Per- 
sonality AND  THE  Soul  of 
His  Religion 

This  utterance  leads  us  into  the 
secret  of  Christ's  personality.  The 
more  one  studies  His  words  and  acts, 
especially  in  the  light  which  modern 
research  has  thrown  upon  them,  the 
more  is  one  convinced  that  His  life 
and  mission  become  explicable  only 
through  the  principle  of  faith.  He 
had  a  trust  in  God  that  nothing  could 
shake,  no  doubt  nor  fear  of  fate. 
This  was  why  He  could  Himself  re- 
move mountains,  could  lift  the  bur- 
den of  disease  by  evoking  faith,  which 
was  the  necessary  psychic  medium 
for  the  transmission  of  His  healing 
virtue.  This  was  why  He  could,  im- 
mediately after  His  rejection  at  Naza 

24 

!  =1- 


Ifaitb 

reth,  send  forth  His  disciples  as  trum- 
peters to  herald  the  victorious  ap- 
proach of  the  new  kingdom,  of  a  good 
time  coming.  This  was  why  He  could 
bend  history  to  His  will,  abolish  an 
age-long  order,  and  create  a  religion 
which  to-day,  amid  the  myriad  faiths 
of  humanity,  has  only  one  serious  rival. 
This  was  why  He  was  an  optimist, 
and  could  see  in  the  universe  nothing 
but  goodness,  happiness,  and  beauty 
against  which  sin  and  shame  and  sor- 
row were  but  a  fleeting  shadow  imply- 
ing light,  a  "silence  implying  sound." 
Hence  for  Christ  the  heart  and  soul 
of  religion  and  life  is  faith.  The 
typical  citizen  of  the  Kingdom  is  the 
child,  with  his  uplifted,  eager  glance 
and  trustful  heart.  Wherever  He 
finds  the  child-spirit  He  approves  it, 
for  He  sees  in  it  the  possibility  of  all 
growth;    and  it  is  one  of  his  great 

3  25 

i 


Ifaitb 

ideas  that  in  the  history  of  the  soul 
the  cardinal  fact  is  the  fact  of  growth. 
He  does  not  speak  as  a  philosopher 
or  a  theologian,  but  as  a  poet.  He 
does  not  define  faith,  nor  analyze  it 
into  its  constituent  elements,  nor  does 
He  offer  any  systematic  exposition 
of  its  various  relations.  In  the  main 
He  is  content  with  fastening  the  eye 
on  its  dynamic  quality,  and  with  seek- 
ing to  awaken  or  to  strengthen  it 
in  the  hearts  of  his  hearers. 

For  Him,  faith  is  one  of  the  living 
forces  of  the  universe.  It  can  do 
things;  nay,  more — it  can  achieve 
what  to  the  eye  of  prosaic  sense  ap- 
pears unachievable.  It  is  the  key  to 
the  kingdom  of  holiness  and  health. 
In  virtue  of  its  mystic  touch  man  gains 
in  a  moment  dominion  over  himself 
and  over  the  world.  Armed  with  it, 
\  the  soul  goes  forth  to  ever-fresh  en 

26 


Ifaitb 

deavors,  and,  unafraid,  meets  the 
standing  discouragements  of  human- 
ity— sin  and  pain  and  death.  Hence 
the  Christian  religion  belongs  essen- 
tially to  the  realm  of  the  heroic  and 
the  romantic,  to  the  world  of  genius 
and  inspiration.  It  demands  men  of 
daring  spirit  who  are  willing  to  make 
the  venture  of  faith,  and  in  all  ages 
it  has  found  them. 

VIII 

The  Healing  Power  of  Faith 

It  is  unnecessary  to  cite  the  abun- 
dant proofs  given  in  the  Gospels  of 
the  fact  that  the  essential  prerequisite 
to  the  cure  of  the  psycho-physical  dis- 
orders which  challenged  Christ's  love 
and  pity  was  trustful  confidence  on 
the  part  of  the  suflFerer  or  of  his  friends 
or  of  both.    When  this  was  absent,  or 

27 


faitb 

present  only  in  a  feeble  degree,  little 
or  no  good  resulted.  True  to  the 
psychology  of  the  situation  is  the 
remark  of  the  Evangelist  that  the 
men  and  women  among  whom  Jesus 
had  grown  up  were  perplexed  at  the 
contrast  between  His  humble  origin 
and  the  arresting  character  of  His 
words  and  acts.  Unable  to  solve 
this  contradiction,  they  refused  to  be- 
lieve in  His  message.  In  such  an 
atmosphere  the  Wonder-worker  was 
almost  powerless. 

"He  was  not  able  to  do  any  work  of  power, 
save  that  he  laid  his  hands  upon  a  few  sick 
folk,  and  healed  them,  and  He  marveled 
because  of  their  unbelief."  ^ 

The  few  whom  He  did  cure  had 
faith  enough  for  his  word  to  take 
effect.  With  striking  simplicity  the 
Gospel  writer  says  that  "He  was  not 

*  Mark  vi,  5. 

28 


Ifaitb 

able"  to  perform  there  any  of  the 
notable  wonders  which  elsewhere  had 
made  Him  famous.  As  would  be  said 
to  -  day,  His  power  was  inhibited 
through  want  of  the  necessary  me- 
dium; just  as  in  the  physical  realm, 
electric  energy  cannot  manifest  itself 
apart  from  certain  substances  en- 
dowed with  conductive  qualities. 
Christ  lays  down  no  limitation  to  the 
power  of  faith.  His  word  is,  "Be  it 
done  unto  thee  according  to  thy 
faith.'^ 

There  is  a  little  story  which  Mark  ^ 
records  and  which  is  the  best  com- 
mentary on  this  saying.  Jesus  is  on 
His  way  to  the  house  of  Jairus, 
escorted  by  a  great  crowd  who  wish  to 
see  an  exhibition  of  His  spiritual 
powers  in  the  raising  up  of  the  child 
at  the  point  of  death.     There  is  a 

^  Chapter  v,  verses  25-34. 
29 


Ifaitb 

poor  woman  in  the  crowd  who  for  a 
long  time  has  suffered  from  a  painful 
malady,  and  who  had  enriched  the 
physicians  with  all  her  fortune  in  vain 
attempts  to  find  relief.  Mark's  ob- 
servation that  she  had  got  no  benefit 
from  the  physicians'  treatment,  "but 
rather  had  grown  worse,"  is  quietly 
dropped  by  Luke,  who  could  not 
tolerate  such  a  slur  upon  his  own  pro- 
fession. The  woman  shares  the  belief 
of  those  about  her  that  the  touch  of 
Jesus  is  remedial,  not  necessarily  the 
consciously  willed  touch  of  His  hand, 
but  any  kind  of  contact  with  Him, 
such  as  might  be  obtained  by  touching 
His  robe.  Note  that  all  the  conditions 
for  a  cure  are  present.  There  is  the 
overmastering  personality  of  Jesus, 
whose  fame  as  a  healer  had  spread  far 
and  wide.  There  is  "expectant  atten- 
tion" raised  to  a  high  pitch  of  in- 

30 


faitfi 

tensity  by  the  very  fact  that  she  and 
those  with  her  are  on  the  way  to 
witness  a  manifestation  of  heaKng 
power  far  greater  than  any  that  would 
be  needed  in  her  case.  There  is  strong 
faith  in  Jesus  Himself,  mingled  with  a 
superstitious  belief  that  a  kind  of 
quasi-physical  energy  proceeds  from 
His  person  and  permeates  His  clothes. 
Carried  onward  by  the  rush  of  psychic 
excitement,  she  forces  her  way 
through  the  crowd  and  grasps  the 
tassel  of  his  garment.  And  then  the 
physical  change  takes  place — ^how, 
modern  science  does  not  know.  She 
"knows  in  her  body"  that  she  is 
cured  of  her  complaint.  Now  Jesus 
is  conscious  that  the  hand  which 
plucks  at  His  garment  is  not  the 
hand  of  a  mere  curiosity-seeker,  but 
of  one  in  dire  need.  His  spiritual 
sensitiveness.  His  powers  of  intuition, 

31 

I  !■ 


faitb 

would  sujQSce  to  warn  Him  of  the 
silent  appeal.  He  asks  who  it  is  that 
touched  Him,  and  looks  around  to 
find  the  suppliant.  She,  in  turn,  feels 
herself  in  the  presence  of  a  superhu- 
man power,  and  He  who  wields  it 
now  looks  at  her.  Once  more  her 
native  superstition  suggests  false  ideas 
which  awaken  her  terror.  Afraid  and 
trembling,  she  falls  at  the  Master's 
feet  and  begs  forgiveness  for  her 
boldness.  The  cure  has  already  been 
wrought.  He  now  confirms  it  and 
renders  it  permanent  with  a  word  of 
grace  which  must  long  have  lingered 
in  her  memory.  ''Daughter,  thy 
faith  has  saved  thee.  Depart  in 
peace  and  be  free  from  thy  com- 
plaint." In  other  words,  Jesus  would 
have  her  understand  that  the  true 
factors  in  the  cure  are  Himself  and 
her  own  faith  in  His  power  and  will 

I  1- 


faitb 

ingness  to  help.  Now  she  knows  that 
it  is  not  His  clothes,  but  His  own 
gracious  personality  as  revealed  by 
glance  and  word  and  gesture  that  is 
the  ultimate  basis  of  her  trust. 

The  "enthusiasm  of  humanity" 
which  was  Christ's  great  weapon 
against  the  ills  of  his  time  was  also 
His  legacy  to  his  followers.  For  a 
time  the  Christian  community  found 
in  it  a  source  of  power  and  health,  a 
present  help  in  a  world  full  of  trou- 
bles.   As  the  writer  has  said  elsewhere : 

The  literature  of  the  ante-Nicene  period  is 
permeated  with  a  sense  of  conquest  over  sick- 
ness, disease,  and  moral  ills  of  every  kind. 
The  primitive  Church,  indeed,  accepted  the 
current  philosophy  of  disease.  It  was  a  wide- 
spread belief  not  only  among  Jews  and 
Christians,  but  generally  throughout  the  Ro- 
man world,  that  demons  or  malignant  spirits 
caused  all  sorts  of  sickness  and  psychical  dis- 
orders; indeed,  in  a  very  real  sense  ruled  the 
world.  This  belief  was  not  confined  to  the 
33 


Ifaitb 

uneducated.  Even  such  a  man  as  the  schol- 
arly, cultured  Celsus,  the  great  critic  of 
Christianity,  believed  in  demoniacal  ac- 
tivity.   .   .   . 

Now  the  early  Church  believed  that  Jesus 
had  committed  to  her  weapons  wherewith  to 
attack  and  rout  these  evil  forces  and  to  rescue 
souls  from  their  grasp.  There  is  abundant 
testimony  that  one  of  the  most  important 
factors  in  the  early  propaganda  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith  was  a  special  power  which  Chris- 
tians seemed  to  have  over  various  psychical 
disturbances.^ 

Unhappily,  the  full  resources  of  this 
power  have  never  been  utilized.  With 
the  gradual  secularizing  of  the  church, 
the  intellectualizing  of  religion,  and 
the  loss  of  that  simplicity  which  is  the 
sign  manual  of  Christ's  teaching, 
the  meaning  of  faith  was  obscured 
and  its  energies  benumbed.  It  is 
true  that  every  age  has  known  men 
through  whom  faith  has  revealed  its 

*  Religion  and  Medicine,  pp.  296,  297. 
34 


faitb 

mountain-moving  power,  such  as  Au- 
gustine, Francis  of  Assisi,  Luther, 
Wesley,  Fox,  and  the  great  succession 
of  the  mystics.  But  as  a  normal 
element  in  Christian  teaching  and  in 
the  Christian  scheme  of  life  it  has 
been  largely  forgotten. 

To-day  the  educated  physician  and 
the  psychologist  recognize  its  mean- 
ing and  worth.  They  insist  that  faith 
is  an  actual  healing  process  in  the 
body,  a  current  which  carries  with  it 
health  and  unity.  If  only  this  psy- 
chical energy  be  set  in  motion,  disease, 
within  limits,  may  be  opposed  and 
overcome.  "After  all,"  says  Professor 
Osier,  "faith  is  the  great  revealer  of 
life.  Without  it  man  can  do  nothing; 
with  it,  even  with  a  fragment,  as  a 
grain  of  mustard-seed,  all  things  are 
possible  to  him." 

It  is  perhaps  well  to  point  out  that  L, 


35 


3faitb 

faith  of  any  kind,  and  quite  inde- 
pendently of  the  object  on  which 
it  is  placed,  has  a  healing  value. 
Faith  in  anything  will  produce  a 
physiological  effect.  Faith  in  a  charm, 
or  in  a  drug,  or  in  an  apparition,  may 
cure  a  disorder.  We  are  here  in  a 
non-moral  and  non-spiritual  realm. 
In  all  ages  faith  has  achieved  healing 
wonders.  Among  primitive  savages, 
as  among  the  most  cultured  peoples 
of  antiquity  ,"' faith-healing"  was  held 
in  honor.  Brainerd,  the  missionary 
among  the  Indians,  was  puzzled  by 
the  parallels  which  he  found  to 
Christ's  healing  activity  in  the  won- 
ders wrought  by  the  magic  incanta- 
tions of  savage  medicine-men,  just 
as  Origen,  in  the  third  century,  could 
not  deny,  in  his  controversy  with 
Celsus,  that  sick  persons  had  been 
cured  by  pagan  divinities.     It  is  im- 


3faitb 

possible  to  believe  that  reports  of 
cures  of  this  kind  could  have  per- 
sisted all  through  the  ages  had  they 
been  without  any  foundation  in  fact. 
Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  illus- 
tration of  ancient  faith-healing  is  that 
of  the  cult  of  iEsculapius,  the  god  of 
bodily  health,  whose  shrine  at  Epi- 
dauros  has  been  in  our  own  time 
excavated  by  the  Greek  Archaeo- 
logical Society.  We  now  know  from 
the  memorials  which  grateful  sufferers 
left  behind  them  that  people  betook 
themselves  to  this  center  from  all 
parts  of  the  Roman  world,  as  we  go 
to-day  to  Aix-les-Bains  or  Carlsbad; 
that  they  prayed  to  the  god  for  help 
and  offered  sacrifices  on  his  altar, 
and  that  sleep  was  induced  either  by 
a  drug  or  by  hypnotic  suggestion. 
Here  is  a  specimen  of  the  cures  which 
were  wrought,  a  specimen  which  in 

S7 

!  — 


Ifaitb 

the  light  of  modern  psychology  pre- 
sents no  diflBculties  to  belief. 

A  dumb  boy  was  brought  to  the 
Temple  that  he  might  recover  his 
voice. 

When  he  had  performed  the  preliminary 
sacrifices  and  performed  the  usual  rites,  the 
Temple  priest  who  bore  the  sacrificial  fire 
turned  to  the  boy's  father  and  said,  "Do 
you  promise  to  pay  within  a  year  the  fees  for 
the  cure  if  you  obtain  that  for  which  you  have 
come?"  Suddenly  the  boy  answered,  "I  do." 
His  father  was  greatly  astonished  at  this,  and 
told  his  son  to  speak  again.  The  boy  re- 
peated the  words  and  so  was  cured.* 

Under  every  form  of  creed  and  cus- 
tom and  ritual,  savage  and  civilized, 
pagan  and  Christian,  Catholic  and 
Protestant,  people  have  been  freed 
by  faith  from  a  great  variety  of  dis- 
orders and  miseries;  and  the  inter- 
esting  question   is.   Why   is   it  that 

Quoted  in  W,  F.  Cobb's  Spiritual  Healing,  p.  25. 
38 

1- 


faitb 

faith  has  this  power?  Only  a  partial 
answer  can  be  given  to  this  question, 
for  we  do  not  fully  understand  either 
the  physiological  or  the  spiritual  con- 
ditions of  faith.  Doubtless  in  the 
ultimate  analysis  we  must  believe 
that  the  human  mind  in  all  ages  has 
had  an  instinct  or  intuition  that  in 
the  universe  there  is  a  something 
which  can  destroy  disease  and  create 
health  if  only  a  channel  can  be  opened 
up  between  the  soul  and  it.  This, 
however,  is  more  or  less  of  a  specula- 
tion. What  we  do  know  is  that  faith 
is  an  emotional  state  as  well  as  an 
intellectual  act.  It  is  almost  impos- 
sible to  exaggerate  the  influence  of 
the  emotions  on  both  body  and  mind. 
"Our  whole  cubic  capacity,"  says 
the  late  William  James,  "is  sensibly 
alive,  and  each  morsel  of  it  contrib- 
utes   its    pulsation    of    feeling,   dim 

39 


Ifaitb 

or  sharp,  pleasant,  painful,  or  du- 
bious, to  that  sense  of  personality 
that  every  one  of  us  unfailingly  car- 
ries with  him." 

Our  emotions  have  power  to  color 
the  whole  universe,  sinking  it  now 
into  midnight  darkness  through  which 
comes  no  gleam  of  light,  and  again 
transforming  it  into  a  radiant  joy 
that  braces  up  the  whole  man  and 
makes  the  hardest  task  a  delight. 
Emotions  of  a  certain  type  increase 
our  sense  of  reality,  and  emotions  of 
another  type  detract  from  it.  Fear, 
beyond  a  certain  point,  cripples  every 
organ,  quickens  the  action  of  the 
heart,  inhibits  the  secretions  of  the 
stomach  and  intestines,  contracts  the 
muscular  system,  makes 

Thy  knotted  and  combined  locks  to  part 
And  each  particular  hair  to  stand  on  end 
Like  quills  upon  the  fretful  porcupine. 
40 

T  =1- 


faitb 

The  antagonist  of  fear  is  faith. 
Under  the  stimulus  of  confidence  and 
trust  the  various  unconscious  assimi- 
lative processes  of  the  body  go  on 
undisturbed,  the  vital  powers  are 
quickened,  and  the  sympathetic  ner- 
vous system  functions  freely  and 
easily. 

IX 

The  Importance  of  Faith's  Object 

As  has  been  said,  whatever  pro- 
duces the  faith  is  a  matter  of  indif- 
ference. *' Trust  in  the  statue  of  St. 
Peter  has  the  same  effect  as  trust  in 
St.  Peter  himself."  This  idea,  which 
is  perfectly  true,  has,  however,  led 
to  an  inference  that  is  false.  The  in- 
ference is  that  it  does  not  matter  in 
what  or  in  whom  we  put  our  trust. 
And  yet  it  matters  much  in  every 

41 


3faitb 

way.  For  an  unspiritual  faith,  while 
working  a  physiological  good,  can 
achieve  only  ethical  harm.  It  is  in 
confounding  the  physiological  and  the 
spiritual  effects  of  faith  that  so  many 
healing  cults  in  our  time  have  led 
their  adherents  into  all  sorts  of  ab- 
surdities and  have  evoked  the  con- 
tempt of  sane  and  sober  men.  Faith 
in  an  irrational  formula,  or  in  a  fetish, 
whether  material  or  intellectual,  has 
cured  and  is  curing  many  persons  of 
chronic  rheumatism;  but  it  is  at  the 
same  time  imprisoning  their  souls  in 
false  ideas  of  God,  man,  and  the 
universe. 

It  is  when  we  leave  the  physio- 
logical realm  and  enter  the  world  of 
morals  and  of  spirit  that  the  impor- 
tance of  the  object  on  which  faith 
rests  becomes  apparent.  It  is  obvious 
that  faith  in  a  superstition  which  is 

1- 


Ifaltb 

only  a  superstition  has  no  power  to 
reconstruct  character  or  wake  "a 
soul  under  the  ribs  of  death."  For 
here  salvation  comes  by  an  ideal  which 
embodies  the  highest  hopes  and  aspi- 
rations of  the  soul.  We  surrender  to 
this  ideal.  We  accept  it  as  for  us 
the  controlling  motive  of  our  lives. 
And  the  result  is  freedom,  power,  ex- 
pansion. By  means  of  a  process  of 
spiritual  re-education  the  emotions 
which  have  hitherto  gathered  round 
unworthy  objects  can  be  guided  to 
higher  and  nobler  ends.  And  the 
more  spiritual  a  religion  is,  the  more 
capable  is  it  of  effecting  this  transfor- 
mation. 

Christianity,  as  John  Stuart  Mill 
said,  is  especially  fortunate  in  having 
its  ideal  realized  in  a  person,  for  it 
would  not  be  easy  even  for  an  un- 
believer to  find  a  better  translation 

43 


Ifaitb 

of  virtue  from  the  abstract  to  the 
concrete  than  to  try  so  to  live  that 
Christ  would  approve  our  life.  Hence 
it  appeals  not  to  this  or  that  element 
in  human  nature,  but  to  man  taken 
largely,  to  man  in  the  totality  of  his 
powers  and  possibilities.  While  all 
religions  imply  faith,  it  is  the  special 
characteristic  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion. The  primary  motto  of  Chris- 
tianity is  ''I  believe,"  while  the  pri- 
mary demand  of  other  religions  is 
expressed  in  the  phrase  "I  do." 
Christianity  lives  by  the  grandeur  of 
its  beliefs.  But  belief  or  faith  is 
inward,  is  concerned  with  the  springs 
and  motives  of  actions  and  feelings, 
whereas  institutions  and  ceremonial 
observances  remain  rather  on  the  sur- 
face of  life.  Christian  faith  is  thus 
the  most  powerful  antagonist  of  habits 
recognized  to  be  evil. 

44 


raitb 

X 

The  Power  of  Faith  to  Conquer 
Bad  Habits 

The  force  of  habit  is  one  of  the 
recognized  commonplaces  of  the  mor- 
aKst  and  the  psychologist,  and  it  is 
perhaps  diflScult  to  overestimate  its 
power  as  long  as  it  holds  the  entire 
field  of  observation.  We  need,  how- 
ever, to  supplement  it  by  the  truth 
that  there  are  psychical  energies  which 
in  obedience  to  suitable  incentives 
can  be  released  and  with  revolutionary 
power  can  uproot  one  kind  of  habit 
and  start  the  creation  of  its  opposite. 

In  proof  of  this  we  have  only  to 
recall  such  experiences  as  are  recorded 
in  Mr.  Harold  Begbie's  Twice-Born 
Men,  or  in  Mr.  Masefield's  The  Ever- 
lasting Mercy.  Mr.  Masefield's  hero, 
Saul  Kane,  drunkard,  swearer,  poach- 

45 

i  = 


ffaitb 

er,  and  gambler,  hears  a  piercing 
word  spoken  by  an  earnest  child  of 
faith,  and  in  one  night  he  passes 
through  the  change  that  destroys  the 
habits  of  a  lifetime. 

I  did  not  thinky  I  did  not  strive. 

The  deep  peace  burnt  my  me  alive. 

The  bolted  door  had  broken  in^ 

I  knew  that  I  had  done  with  sin. 

I  knew  that  Christ  had  given  me  birth 

To  brother  all  the  souls  on  earthy 

And  every  bird  and  every  beast 

Should  share  the  crumbs  broke  at  the  feast. 

More  frequently  the  influence  of 
faith  is  felt  by  a  slow  process  of 
education  in  which,  without  any  fore- 
going upheaval,  the  spirit  grows  in 
"self-knowledge,  self -reverence,  self- 
control/'  But  whether  it  be  by  one 
method  or  the  other,  faith  is  the 
agency  by  which  the  method  is  real- 
ized. Faith  has  thus  a  unifying 
power.     It  can  abolish  the  dissocia- 

46 


Ifaitb 

tions  or  disharmonies  of  the  inner  life. 
It  implies  self -surrender,  an  abandon- 
ment of  a  struggle  which  only  keeps 
up  the  inner  discord,  and  a  falling 
back  upon  the  forces  of  the  subcon- 
cious  life.  What  had  been  dimly  felt 
as  a  vague  ideal  only  half  believed  in 
now  takes  to  itself  hands  and  feet, 
reinforces  the  better  self,  and  con- 
strains the  whole  man  to  higher  levels 
of  vision  and  effectiveness.  The  man 
comes  to  himself,  to  his  real  self,  from 
which  for  the  time  being  he  was 
alienated. 

Take,  for  example,  the  alcoholic 
habit.  All  the  so-called  cures  for  this 
disorder  are  based  upon  a  false  or 
inadequate  conception  of  its  causa- 
tion. How  can  a  purely  physical 
agent  abolish  an  ethical  weakness, 
destroy  one  set  of  associations,  and 
make  another  set  dominantly  active?  JJ 

47 


yaitb 

How  can  the  most  powerful  drug  that 
has  ever  been  compounded  unify  the 
psychic  organism?  It  need  not  be 
denied  that  it  may  have  valuable  sub- 
sidiary effects  upon  the  bodily  organs, 
but  it  cannot  storm  the  central  for- 
tress of  the  mischief.  The  only  forces 
competent  for  the  task  are  moral 
and  psychological — a  noble  ambition, 
an  overmastering  emotion,  the  vision 
of  some  end  or  aim  that  absorbs  the 
entire  attention;  above  all,  the  iden- 
tification of  one's  self  with  a  larger 
Self,  a  Life  conceived  as  around  and 
within,  from  which  come  reinforce- 
ment, peace,  and  vital  impulse. 

In  the  following  quotation  from  a 
private  letter  we  see  the  two  forces — 
the  desire  for  alcohol  and  a  high 
motive — in  violent  conflict: 

There  is  a  more  religious  aspect,  and  I  really 
think,  too,  that  my  greatest  help  comes  from 
48 

1- 


faitb 

this  source.  There  were  only  two  days  in  the 
last  three  weeks  when  I  had  any  temptation 
[to  take  a  drink].  It  seemed  to  me  then  that 
all  good  had  departed  out  of  me.  As  I  was 
walking  along  the  street  invisible  cords  seemed 
to  be  dragging  me  into  bar-rooms  as  I  passed, 
and  something  kept  telling  me  that  it  was  all 
of  no  use  and  to  go  in  and  get  a  drink.  Still 
there  was  a  faint  glimmering  of  common 
sense  left,  because  I  remembered  something 
I  had  read  in  Prentice  Mulford's  books — that 
when  we  have  exhausted  all  our  resources  in 
any  direction  until  we  are  almost  ready  to 
give  up,  we  may  still  conquer  if  we  literally 
throw  ourselves  back  on  God  and  let  the 
Supreme  Power  fight  the  battle  for  us.  On 
this  occasion  I  did  this,  and  pretty  soon  all 
sense  of  discord  left  me.  The  temptations 
lost  their  power,  and  I  was  at  peace.  I  have 
not  been  tempted  since.  I  may  be  again,  but 
I  do  not  think  the  temptations  will  be  so 
strong  next  time,  and  I  will  be  stronger  myself, 
and  God  will  be  just  as  ready  to  help  me  next 
time.    So  I  am  safe. 

Experiences  of  this  kind  remind  us 
of    Professor    Leuba's    remark    that 
God  is  used  rather  than  understood; 

49 


Ifaitb 


the  religious  consciousness  caring  little 
who  God  is,  but  wanting  to  make  use 
of  Him  for  various  ends."  And  this 
is  confirmed  by  the  results  of  a  ques- 
tionnaire which  was  sent  out  some 
years  ago,  to  which  seventy-four  per- 
sons replied.  About  fifty  described 
God  as  "Friend,''  "Companion," 
"Helper,"  "Source  of  strength  in 
temptation,"  "Ally  of  the  soul's 
ideals,"  and  so  on.^  Need  and  striv- 
ing and  desire  for  satisfaction — these 
are  the  universal  characteristics  of 
humanity,  whereas  the  demand  for 
philosophical  knowledge  is  confined 
to  the  few.  A  profound  human  in- 
stinct is  expressed  in  the  oft-quoted 
saying  of  Voltaire,  that  "if  there  were 
no  God  it  would  be  necessary  to 
create  one." 


^  J.  H.  Pratt.    Psychology  of  Religious  Beliefs  p.  263 
50 


faitb 

XI 

Faith's  Power  to  Transfigure  the 
Past 

Perhaps  the  greatest  obstacle  to 
effort — a  very  mountain  that  weighs 
upon  the  soul,  is  the  consciousness  of 
failure.  Having  surrendered  once  to 
what  reason  and  conscience  condemn, 
we  feel  we  are  likely  to  surrender 
again,  and  are  profoundly  discour- 
aged. Moreover,  is  not  the  past  a 
thing  beyond  recall.'^ 

The  moving  Finger  writes,  and  having  writ. 
Moves  on. 

But  a  modern  prophet  like  Maeter- 
linck has  received  a  new  vision  which 
frees  us  from  the  grasp  of  this  para- 
lyzing pessimism. 

The  force  of  the  past  is  indeed  one  of  the 
heaviest  that  weigh  upon  men  and  ineUne 
51 

I  \ 


Ifaltb 


them  to  sadness.  And  yet  there  is  none  more 
docile,  more  eager  to  follow  the  direction  we 
could  so  readily  give  did  we  but  know  how 
best  to  avail  ourselves  of  this  docility.  .  .  . 
Our  chief  concern  with  the  past,  that  which 
truly  remains  and  forms  part  of  us,  is  not 
what  we  have  done  or  the  adventures  that 
we  have  met  with,  but  the  moral  reactions  by- 
gone events  are  producing  within  us  at  this 
very  moment,  the  inward  being  they  have 
helped  to  form;  and  these  reactions  that  give 
birth  to  our  sovereign  intimate  being  are 
wholly  governed  by  the  manner  in  which  we 
regard  past  events,  and  vary  as  the  moral  sub- 
stance varies  that  they  encounter  within  us.  ^ 

This  means  that  faith  has  a  retro- 
spective effect,  has  power  to  lay  the 
ghosts  of  conscience  by  a  moral  re- 
vulsion against  evil,  in  virtue  of  its 
capacity  to  lay  hold  of  a  new  ideal 
and  thus  to  create  a  new  world  out 
of  the  ruins  of  the  old.  Hence  all 
men  of  faith  are  optimists.  Their 
moral  defeats,  however  great,  do  not 

1  The  Buried  Temple,  pp.  243-245. 
52 


jfaitb 

daunt  them.  Faith  transforms  failure 
into  success.  These  persons  feel  that 
they  are  in  league  with  the  Powers  of 
the  universe,  and  they  fear  nothing 
human  or  diabolic.  The  forces  of  en- 
vironment and  heredity,  terrible 
though  they  be,  are  broken  and 
driven  from  the  field.  Hope  takes  the 
place  of  despair,  and  the  energies  of 
a  new  life  reach  out  in  every  direction. 
If  for  the  moment  they  yield  to  de- 
spondency, they  pray,  in  the  spirit  of 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson: 

Help  us  with  the  grace  of  courage  that  we 
be  none  of  us  cast  down  when  we  sit  lamenting 
amid  the  ruins  of  our  happiness  or  our  in- 
tegrity; touch  us  with  fire  from  the  altar  that 
we  may  be  up  and  doing  to  rebuild  our  city. 

XII 

Faith  the  Motive  Power  of  Work 

Hence  apart  from  its  effect  on  dis- 
ss 

i  = 


yaitb 

ordered  or  dissociated  states  of  mind, 
faith  has  an  important  bearing  on  our 
normal  Hfe.  It  raises  its  tone,  stimu- 
lates all  our  moral  and  physical  ener- 
gies, and  contributes  to  an  all-round 
eJBBciency.  Very  significant  is  the  fact 
that  all  genuine  as  distinguished  from 
spurious  mystics  have  been  great 
workers.  "My  Father  worketh  hith- 
erto, and  I  work,"  says  the  Master  of 
all  the  mystics.  "I  can  do  all  things 
through  Him  that  strengtheneth  me," 
writes  His  great  disciple.  And  this 
correlation  of  faith  with  grasp  of  de- 
tail and  interest  in  the  world  of  living 
men  is  strikingly  manifested  in  such 
high  souls  as  St.  Francis,  St.  Teresa, 
George  Fox,  John  Wesley,  and  Gen- 
eral Gordon. 

Those  who  attain  to  it  [says  Miss  Under- 
hill]  have  developed  not  merely  their  recep- 
tive, but  their  creative  powers,  are  directly 
54 


3faitb 

responsible  for  the  emergence  of  new  life,  new 
outbirths  of  reality  into  the  world.^ 

Now,  we  cannot  all  be  mystics,  and 
experience  that  all-absorbing  faith 
which  is  the  divine  air  inbreathed  by 
the  masters  of  the  spiritual  life.  But 
we  can  all  be  more  mystical  than  we 
are,  and  we  can  all  have  a  real  faith 
even  though  it  may  be  at  a  lower  level. 
It  may  be  said,  without  exaggeration, 
that  no  man  ever  achieved  anything 
worth  achieving  without  a  measure  of 
faith,  were  it  only  in  himself.  And 
great  men  have  achieved  their  great- 
ness through  their  faith.  So  it  is  also 
true  in  the  smaller  world  of  ordinary 
men;  a  man,  if  he  is  to  gain  his  ends, 
must  believe  in  his  own  powers.  It  is 
the  failure  of  this  belief  that  accounts 
for  the  mass  of  ineffective,  unprac- 
tical, and  futile  lives  all  around  us. 

1  The  Mystic  Way,  p.  192. 
55 


yaitb 

Few    men   can   pass   safely   through 
this  world  without  a  faith  of  some  sort. 

XIII 

Faith  the  Conqueror  of  Fear 

Much  of  the  fear  that  casts  its 
baneful  shadow  over  modern  society- 
is  to  be  traced  to  the  neglect  of  this 
principle.  As  Henri  Bordeaux  re- 
minds us,  ''Modem  civilization  is 
ravaged  with  a  terrible  disease";  and 
this  disease  he  calls  "the  fear  of  liv- 
ing." Men  and  women  fear  life  even 
more  than  they  fear  death.  Many 
play  at  living — they  do  not  really  live. 
They  fear  the  responsibilities,  the 
struggles,  the  adventures  not  without 
risk,  which  life  offers  them.  They 
fear  illness.  They  fear  poverty.  They 
fear  unhappiness.  They  fear  danger. 
They   fear   the  passion   of   sacrifice 

56 


yaitb 

They  fear  even  the  exaltation  of  a  pure 
and  noble  love,  until  the  settlements 
in  money  and  social  prestige  have 
been  duly  certified.  They  fear  to 
take  a  plunge  into  life's  depths.  They 
fear  this  world,  and  they  fear  still 
more  the  world  beyond  the  grave. 

We  see  the  same  ignoble  spirit  in 
much  of  the  condemnation  of  war  that 
is  just  now  the  fashion.  War  is  ter- 
rible, inhuman,  diabolic,  and  he  who 
provokes  it  incurs  a  monstrous  guilt. 
Yet  there  is  war  and  war,  and  no  good 
can  result  from  confounding  things 
that  diflFer.  War  can  be  waged,  and 
has  been  waged,  with  chivalry  toward 
the  weak  and  the  innocent,  with  a  puri- 
fying sense  of  justice,  of  right  vindicat- 
ing itself  against  wrong.  Oliver  Crom- 
well, Henry  Havelock,  and  General 
Roberts  were  great  fighters,  but  their 
very  fighting  was  motived  by  hatred 

57 


3faitb 

of  oppression  and  love  of  humanity. 
It  is  true  that  in  an  ideal  world,  in 
the  world,  say,  of  the  twenty-second 
or  twenty  -  third  century,  when  a 
higher  type  of  humanity  shall  have 
been  evolved,  war  will  have  passed — 
in  fact  as  it  has  already  passed  in 
moral  idea.  But  is  there  nothing  in 
the  mean  time  worse  than  war?  We 
may  be  too  proud  to  fight,  as  a  high 
authority  has  told  us.  But  may  we 
not  also  be  too  anxious  to  avoid 
fatigue,  enthusiasm,  the  loss  of  mate- 
rial goods,  the  upheavals  that  dis- 
arrange the  well-ordered  futility  of 
our  existence? 

The  most  truculent  swashbuckler 
who  by  valiant  charge  or  keeping 
vigil  in  some  rain-soaked  trench  ven- 
tures his  all  in  obedience  to  a  dim 
sense  of  duty,  or,  under  the  impulse 
-J  of  a  faith  in  some  far-oflf  good  to  be 

58 

I  1- 


3faitb 

achieved  by  the  horror  and  the  agony, 
is  at  least  living,  is  tasting  of  an 
austere  joy;  whereas  the  dilettante 
or  the  money-grubber  at  home  shrinks 
back  into  a  narrow  and  self-centered 
world  of  small  anemic  pleasures  which 
he  glorifies  with  the  name  of  peace. 
To  condemn  war  from  high  and  noble 
motives,  or  because  there  has  flashed 
on  us  the  vision  of  a  divine  humanity, 
is  one  thing;  but  to  condemn  it  be- 
cause we  fear  the  sacrifices  and  incon- 
veniences which  it  entails,  and  be- 
cause we  value  stocks  and  shares 
above  freedom  and  the  holiest  goods 
of  humanity,  is  another  and  a  very 
diflFerent  thing.  In  the  latter  case 
we  are  slaves  at  heart,  and  Fear  is 
our  taskmaster.  The  only  power  that 
can  deliver  us  from  this  tyranny  is 
faith.  And  it  delivers  us  not  by 
denying  the  reality  of  the  objects  of  L 

59 


Jfaitb 

our  fear,  but  by  giving  us  strength 
which  enables  us  to  transcend  them. 
Consider  the  respective  activities  of 
fear  and  faith.  Fear  disintegrates, 
faith  unifies;  fear  weakens,  faith  invig- 
orates; fear  depresses, faith  exalts;  fear 
inhibits,  f aiih  s<rts  free.  In  brief,  fear 
lowers  our  vitality,  lessens  the  sum- 
total  of  our  muscular,  moral,  and  intel- 
lectual energies.  What  we  need  is  not 
more  knowledge,  but  more  trust. 

Science  [as  Martineau  says]  changes  the 
direction  rather  than  lessens  the  amount  of 
fear;  and  while  the  great  decrees  of  nature 
remain  what  they  are,  however  we  may  dis- 
tribute its  items  of  suffering  and  alarm,  the 
aggregate  will  not  be  materially  changed.^ 

Fear  has  a  fascination  of  its  own. 
The  mind  is,  as  it  were,  hypnotized 
by  the  idea  of  the  thing  feared,  until 
at  last  it  fills  the  whole  field  of  con- 

^  Hours  of  Thought.    Vol.  II.,  p.  154. 
60 


Ifaitb 

sciousness,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  the 
late-acquired  products  of  training  and 
civilization,  self-control,  patience,  and 
the  restraints  of  humane  feeling. 
Sometimes  the  fear  has  been  slowly 
incubating  in  the  subconscious  region 
of  mind.  Under  a  sufficient  stimulus 
it  may  emerge  in  overmastering  fury, 
carrying  all  before  it — for  the  time. 
To  this  type  of  fear  belong  those 
systematized  dreads  or  phobias  such 
as  fear  of  loneliness,  fear  of  crowds, 
fear  of  strangers,  fear  of  insomnia, 
fear  of  insanity,  and  many  another 
phantasm  of  the  imagination  which 
keeps  so  many  all  their  lifetime  sub- 
ject to  bondage. 

It  is  a  pathetic  reflection  that  all 
around  us,  even  in  our  own  homes 
and  close  to  our  hearts,  there  are 
those  who  lead  their  lives  under  the 
burden  of  an  unspoken  fear.     These 

61 


yaitb 

unhappy  souls  learn  to  keep  silence, 
because  when  they  have  spoken  they 
have  been  met  only  with  ridicule  or 
misunderstanding;  and  the  very  sup- 
pression of  their  misery  leads  to  its 
intensification  and  fixes  it  more  firmly 
in  the  subconscious.  Much  may  be 
done  by  analyzing  the  fear,  by  lay- 
ing bare  its  hidden  roots,  by  seeing 
how  it  took  origin  in  the  mind.  We 
fear  the  unknown;  but  half  our  fear 
has  vanished  when  the  unknown  has 
been  forced  to  give  up  its  secret. 
But  if  a  genuinely  regenerative  force 
is  to  enter  the  life  and  make  peace 
and  poise  a  permanent  possession, 
something  more  is  needed.  Faith  in 
the  goodness  of  life,  in  the  creative 
spirit  of  the  universe,  in  the  honor  of 
men  and  in  the  virtue  of  women,  in 
the  powers  of  the  human  soul,  and, 
if  by  the  grace  of  Heaven  we  can 

62 


Ifattb 

attain  to  it,  faith  in  a  destiny  rich 
in  boundless  possibiUty  is  the  sover- 
eign cure  for  this  saddest  distemper 
of  the  soul.  No  crisis  is  too  great, 
no  agony  is  too  poignant,  no  upheaval 
of  the  foundations  of  existence  too 
overwhelming  for  the  constraining, 
steadying,  and  uplifting  energies  of  a 
moral  trust. 

One  sometimes  imagines  oneself  in 
a  situation  of  terrible  strain  and 
stress,  amid  the  terrors  of  shipwreck, 
or  in  the  inferno  of  the  modern 
battlefield,  where  the  relentless  forces 
of  nature  or  the  cruel  engines  of  hu- 
man ingenuity  make  havoc  of  youth, 
affection,  beauty,  the  rich  promise 
of  the  future  as  well  as  the  garnered 
harvests  of  the  past,  and  the  doubt 
arises  unbidden — what  would  faith 
in  the  invisible  order  of  realities  avail 
against  the  overpowering  might  of 

68 


raltb 


the  immediate  present?  It  suflBces 
us  to  reply  that  faith  is  not  merely 
for  the  sunshine,  but  also  for  the 
darkness;  not  only  for  the  quiet 
levels  of  our  existence,  but  also  for 
the  wrack  of  tempest  and  the  last 
delirium  of  despair. 

Take  the  experience  of  a  young 
British  oflScer  who  had  come  through 
the  horrors  of  the  battle  of  Neuve 
Chapelle,  an  experience  all  the  more 
remarkable  as  he  makes  no  profession 
of  religion,  and  is  not,  in  the  ordinary 
sense  of  the  term,  a  religious  man. 
The  following  extract  is  from  a  pri- 
vate letter  written  from  the  hospital 
where  he  lay  wounded,  and  so  far 
as  is  known  it  is  the  only  occasion  on 
which  he  has  expressed  himself  so 
freely : 

The  regiment  had  a  terrible  time  during 
the  advance,  and  when  I  came  away,  during 
64 

1- 


L 


yattb 

the  third  night,  was  only  about  one-third  the 
strength  it  went  in.  .  .  .  Two  of  our  officers 
went  off  their  heads,  and  about  two-thirds 
were  killed  or  wounded.  I  mention  these  hor- 
rible figures  because  I  think  it  will  interest 
you  to  know  how  I  felt  about  it.  Probably  the 
fact  of  being  in  superb  health  made  a  big 
difference,  but  I  faced  it  far  better  than  I 
ever  expected  to.  There  is  .  .  .  only  one 
thing  that  can  possibly  make  one  rise  above 
these  surroundings:  faith  that  the  spirit  goes 
to  a  higher  life;  and  though  I'm  afraid  my  re- 
ligion has  been  and  still  is  patchy,  this  thought 
kept  me  perfectly  calm  and  steady,  .  .  .  Before 
the  thing  started  you  certainly  could  have  knocked 
me  down  with  a  feather,  and  then  it  was  a 
tremendous  effort  to  force  my  ghastly  smile  into 
something  more  cheery.  Fm  afraid  I  shall  be 
frightened,  too,  when  it  has  to  be  done  again; 
but  if  only  I  can  get  into  the  same  frame  of 
mind  as  before,  I  shall  be  quite  contented. 

If  faith  in  a  mind  with  no  native 
religious  tendency  can  enable  it  to 
face  with  courage  and  resolution  the 
worst  that  fate  can  do,  are  we  not 
justified  in  saying  that  we  are  in  the 

65 


jfaitb 

presence  of  the  greatest  power  known 
to  humanity? 

XIV 

How  TO  Get  Faith 

There  are  man^  who  would  agree 
with  most  or  all  of  what  has  been 
said,  and  yet  turn  away  with  a  sense 
of  depression  as  the  question  recurs: 
How  is  such  a  faith  possible?  How 
can  one  believe,  with  this  whole- 
hearted ahandoTiy  when  all  the  time 
a  temperamental  distrust  or  a  skep- 
tical tendency  holds  the  field?  To 
this  the  reply  is  that  temperament  and 
tendency  are  not  final  facts  before 
which  we  are  bound  to  succumb. 
The  will  counts  for  something — nay, 
much,  in  every  way.  The  first  ques- 
tion, then,  which  I  must  put  to  myself 
is.  Do  I  desire  faith  because  it  is 
for  me  the  one  thing  needful? 

66 


jfattb 

''If  you  desire  faith,"  says  Brown- 
ing, "then  you've  faith  enough." 
There  is  a  profound  truth  here,  for 
it  is  the  desires  that  reveal  the  real 
as  distinguished  from  the  apparent 
trend  of  the  inner  life,  and  if  the 
desire  be  strong  enough  the  end  will 
be  achieved.  There  is  nothing  more 
true  to  experience  than  this:  that  if 
we  really  wish  for  faith  we  will  get 
faith,  and  if  we  do  not  get  it,  it  is 
because  we  do  not  really  wish  it. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  are  certain 
mental  states  which  are  incompatible 
with  the  exercise  of  faith,  such,  for 
example,  as  the  spiritual  torpor  that 
never  permits  us  to  concentrate  our 
minds  on  the  vital  things  of  experi- 
ence, or  the  pessimistic  temper  which 
refuses  to  believe  the  universe  is 
friendly — ^the  moral  sloth  which  set- 
tles down  upon  the  soul  as  a  deadly 

67 


3faitb 

weight  and  prevents  a  forward  move- 
ment. Nevertheless,  the  fact  remains 
we  are  free  to  believe  or  not  to  believe. 
Without  this  freedom  the  whole  basis 
of  religion  and  ethics  would  cease  to 
exist,  for  if  faith  were  not  to  some 
extent  a  matter  of  will,  how  could 
one  be  asked  to  exercise  it?  Indeed, 
faith  is  not  faith  until  it  has  per- 
fected itself  in  an  act  of  will.  And 
the  tragedy  of  many  a  life  lies  in  this, 
that  it  seems  incapable  of  rising  to 
the  height  of  its  most  certain  intel- 
lectual convictions.  Something  holds^ 
it  back,  some  inertia  of  the  will  or 
the  benumbing  power  of  some  habit. 
Coleridge  had  learned  this  truth  by 
bitter  experience. 

"Would  to  God,''  he  cries  in  a  self- 
revealing  passage  of  his  Confessions 
of  an  Inquiring  Spirit^  "that  my 
faith,  that  faith  which  works  on  the 

68 


Ifaitb 

whole  man,  conjSrming  and  conform- 
ing, were  but  in  just  proportion  to 
my  belief,  to  the  full  acquiescence  of 
my  intellect  and  the  deep  consent  of 
my  conscience."  Nearer  our  own  time, 
we  have  the  painful  confession  of  the 
English  man  of  science,  George  John 
Romanes: 

It  IS  certain  [he  says]  that  there  are  agnos- 
tics who  would  greatly  prefer  being  theists, 
and  theists  who  would  give  all  they  possess 
to  be  Christians  if  they  could  thus  secure 
promotion  by  purchase — i,e.,  by  a  single  act 
of  will.  But  yet  the  desire  is  not  strong 
enough  to  sustain  the  will  in  perpetual  action 
so  as  to  make  the  continual  sacrifices  which 
Christianity  entails.  Perhaps  the  hardest  of 
these  sacrifices,  to  an  intelligent  mind,  is  that 
of  his  own  intellect.  At  least  I  am  certain 
that  this  is  so  in  my  own  case.  I  have  been 
so  long  accustomed  to  constitute  Reason  my 
sole  judge  of  truth  that  even  though  reason 
itself  tells  me  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  expect 
that  the  heart  and  will  should  be  required  to 
join  with  reason  in  seeking  God  (for  religion 
69 

r  = 


Ifaitb 

is  for  the  whole  man),  I  am  too  jealous  of  my 
reason  to  exercise  my  will  in  the  direction  of 
my  most  heartfelt  desires.  For,  assuredly,  the 
strongest  desire  of  my  nature  is  to  find  that 
that  nature  is  not  deceived  in  its  highest 
aspirations.  Yet  I  cannot  bring  myself  so 
much  as  to  make  a  venture  in  the  direction  of 
faith.  .  .  .  Even  the  simplest  act  of  will  in 
regard  to  religion,  that  of  prayer,  has  not  been 
performed  by  me  for  at  least  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  simply  because  it  has  seemed  so 
impossible  to  pray  as  it  were  hypothetically, 
that  much  as  I  have  always  desired  to  be 
able  to  pray,  I  cannot  will  the  attempt.^ 

How,  then,  is  the  will  to  be  set  in 
motion?  If  we  complain  that  we  have 
no  will  power,  that  we  cannot  resolve 
to  obey  the  behest  of  reason  and 
conscience,  we  will  do  well  to  remem- 
ber that  as  the  only  cure  for  lack  of 
thought-energy  is  to  think,  so  the 
only  cure  for  the  lack  of  will-energy 
is  to^  wilL     We  can  put  ourselves 

*  Thoughts  on  Religion,  pp.  132,133. 
70 


faitb 

under  those  influences  which  act  as 
a  moral  stimulus  to  the  will.  More- 
over, faith  comes  not  by  argument, 
but  by  an  inspiration.  The  flame  of 
trust  is  kindled  within  us  from  the 
fire  that  burns  in  other  souls.  And 
if  the  moral  atmosphere  in  which  we 
habitually  live  is  itself  impregnated 
with  the  peace  and  power  of  faith,  we 
will  be  more  likely  to  believe  and  to 
act  in  accordance  with  that  percep- 
tion of  cosmic  law  or  of  the  funda- 
mental will  revealed  in  the  universe 
which,  by  whatever  means,  we  have 
obtained.  And  still  further  we  can 
rebuke  ourselves  for  our  moral  dull- 
ness and  call  upon  ourselves  to  shake 
off  our  besetting  doubts. 

Here  is  the  true  value  of  church- 
going.  The  primary  purpose  of  the 
Church,  of  its  preaching,  of  its  sacra- 
ments, of  its  philanthropic  activities, 

71 


raitb 

is  to  increase  the  volume  of  faith  in 
the  individual  and  in  society.  The 
Church  may  be  conceived  of  as  a 
power-house  from  which  go  forth 
streams  of  living  energy.  Hence,  the 
value  of  the  Church  in  the  modern 
world  does  not  lie  primarily  in  her 
intellectual  power  or  in  her  institu- 
tional services  to  the  community,  but 
in  the  amount  of  faith  she  is  able  to 
generate.  The  real  cause  of  the  mani- 
fold criticism  which  to-day  is  leveled 
at  the  Church,  and  the  truth  of  which, 
on  the  whole,  is  conceded  by  every 
frank  observer,  is  the  half-heartedness 
with  which  she  proclaims  her  message. 
There  is  a  wide-spread  suspicion  that 
the  preacher  is  not  sure  of  himself  or 
of  his  message — ^in  a  word,  that  he 
lacks  that  quality  without  which  in- 
tellectual power  and  social  prestige 
are  valueless.    Nevertheless,  the  spirit 

72 

1- 


3faitb 


really  desirous  of  feeling  the  inspira- 
tion of  faith  will  find  those  who  are 
like-minded.  The  faith  of  the  group 
is  necessary  if  one  would  protect  one- 
self from  the  corporate  lack  of  faith 
in  the  world  at  large. 

Perhaps  the  trouble  is  not  so  much 
lack  of  will  as  a  skeptical  predisposi- 
tion. We  look  out  upon  life  and  it 
seems  to  us  to  have  little  or  no  mean- 
ing. Good  and  evil  forces  are  strug- 
gling for  the  mastery,  but  there  is  no 
clear  evidence  that  the  good  is  vic- 
torious. Yet  there  is  an  instinct  which 
tells  us  that  the  good  ought  to  win, 
that  the  world  ought  to  be  a  moral 
world,  and  that  purpose^,  not  chance, 
should  rule.  Now  the  activity  of  faith 
is  obedience  to  this  instinct,  and  the 
venture  of  faith  is  the  impulse  within 
us  to  make  the  world  what  we  feel  it 
ought  to  be,  to  assume  that  the  true 

6  73 


Ifaitb 

and  the  good  will  ultimately  be  found 
at  one.  If  we  make  this  assumption 
and  guide  our  lives  by  it  we  shall 
verify  our  faith  by  the  freedom  and 
the  expansion  and  the  eflFectiveness 
which  will  be  our  experience. 

XV 

Faith  in  Human  Nature 

And  so,  too,  with  the  pessimistic 
want  of  faith  in  our  fellow-men. 

This  cynical  disbelief  in  the  trust- 
worthiness of  human  nature  can  be 
cast  out  and  kept  out  only  by  the 
deliberate  assumption  of  the  opposite. 
Act  as  if  your  fellow-men  were  worthy 
of  trust,  and  you  will  find  that  in  the 
vast  majority  of  cases  your  assump- 
tion will  verify  itself.  The  truth  is 
that  our  faith  in  others  has  a  creative 
quality.    It  awakens  within  men  de- 


Ifaitb 

sires,  ambitions,  dreams  of  which  they 
had  never  suspected  themselves  capa- 
ble. We  are  encouraged  to  exercise 
this  faith  by  the  example  of  those  who 
have  by  their  faith  moved  humanity 
to  higher  issues.  All  great  leaders  of 
men  have  trusted  those  whom  they 
led.  Luther  awoke  Germany  from 
her  age-long  slumbers  and  gave  her 
religious  liberty.  But  Luther  never 
could  have  achieved  his  mighty  task 
had  it  not  been  that  the  dynamic 
quality  of  his  faith  in  the  greatness 
of  the  German  spirit  helped  to  create 
that  very  greatness.  Lincoln's  faith 
in  America  could  not  have  sustained 
its  mighty  burden  had  it  not  been  met 
by  the  faith  of  the  nation  which  he 
led.  But  the  best  illustration  is  found 
in  the  power  of  Christ's  faith  to  make 
heroes  and  heroines  out  of  common- 
place men   and  women.     He  chose 

75 


Jfaitb 

twelve  disciples,  but  only  one  of  them 
betrayed  Him.  And  even  he  could 
not  escape  the  grasp  of  his  Master's 
trust  in  him,  for  at  the  end  he  re- 
pented, and  in  a  moral  revulsion 
against  his  deed  found  life  to  be  in- 
tolerable, and  laid  it  down. 

XVI 

Christ  or  Nietzsche? 

Here  the  Gospel  of  Christ  comes 
into  sharp  collision  with  the  gospel 
of  Nietzsche.  The  philosopher  of- 
militant  pessimism  elaborately  mis- 
conceives the  mission  and  message  of 
Christ.  His  doctrine  may  be  put  in 
a  sentence: 

Christ  praises  the  mean-spirited, 
the  weak,  the  mediocre,  the  common- 
place, the  slaves  in  heart,  whereas  the 
world  really  belongs  to  the  strong, 
the  Masters  who  create  the  values  of 

76 

1- 


jfaitb 

the  world,  the  supermen,  whose  will 
is  the  supreme  law. 

But  Christ's  great  paradox  is  this — 
every  man  is  a  superman  in  the  making. 

The  physically  and  morally  handi- 
capped, the  weak,  the  oppressed,  the 
moral  outcast,  are  such,  not  intrinsi- 
cally, but  through  the  invasion  of  an 
evil  power.  And  this  evil  power 
Christ  by  His  very  faith  feels  Himself 
able  to  exorcise.  He  opens  the  king- 
dom of  power  and  glory  to  the  weak 
and  the  depressed,  by  unveiling  to 
them  the  sources  of  regeneration  in 
the  infinite  energy  of  God.  Hence 
by  the  power  of  faith  men  can  make 
out  of  their  weakness  a  stepping-stone 
to  strength. 

XVH 
Faith  in  the  Powers  of  the  Soul 

But  our  inefficiency  or  our  unhap- 
piness  may  be  traceable  to  a  lack  of 

77 


raitb 

faith,  not  in  our  fellows,  but  in  our- 
selves. There  is  a  modesty  which  is  a 
virtue  and  springs  from  the  respect 
which  we  entertain  toward  others. 
But  exaggerated  self-consciousness  is 
an  evil,  and  results  only  in  a  weaken- 
ing of  personality.  If  Jife  is_  to  b^ 
shaped  to  any  worthy  end  it  is  im- 
perative that  this  sense  of  inferiority 
be  cast  out  and  kept  out  of  the  soul. 
This  can  be  achieved  only  by  a  process 
of  re-education  whose  guiding  princi- 
ple is  faith  in  the  powers  of  the  soul. 
And  here  it  will  help  us  to  remember 
that  our  ordinary  every-day  empirical 
self  is  bound  to  prove  a  broken  reed 
if  we  lean  upon  it.  There  is  a  higher 
and  a  diviner  self  to  which  philoso- 
phers and  mystics  and  spiritual  think- 
ers in  every  age  have  borne  witness. 
Whether  we  are  conscious  of  it  or 
not,   this   is   our  deepest,   our  most 


Ifaitb 

real  self.  Let  us  trustjt^and  we  will 
find  inspiration,  freedom,  courage,  and 
a  peace  which  passeth  all  understand- 
ing. The  sense  of  incapacity  vanishes ; 
the  fear  of  man  dies;  the  distractions 
of  the  attention,  divided  between  our- 
selves and  the  task  in  hand,  no  longer 
disturb  us.  Go  where  we  will,  we 
feel  ourselves  masters  of  our  minds 
and  of  the  situation. 

XVIII 

What  the  Prayer  of  Faith  Can  Do 

The  most  characteristic  expression 
of  religious  faith  is  prayer.  Para- 
doxical though  it  sounds,  we  can  and 
ought  to  pray  for  faith,  and  yet  with- 
out faith  our  prayer  can  find  no 
response.  This  paradox  is  resolved 
by  the  fact  that  in  prayer  the  faith 
faculty   which   we   all   possess   turns 

79 


raitb 

toward  the  unseen  world.  We  open 
our  minds  to  our  spiritual  environ- 
ment, and  the  finite  meets  and  min- 
gles with  the  Infinite.  And  the 
answer  to  this  incipient  faith  is  still 
greater  faith.  The  faculty  grows  by 
exercise. 

The  nascent  life  of  each  of  us  [says  Mr. 
F.  W.  H.  Myers]  is  perhaps  a  fresh  drait — the 
continued  life  is  a  never- varying  draft — upon 
the  cosmic  energy.  In  that  unvarying  energy 
— call  it  by  what  name  we  will — we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being,  and  it  may  well  be 
that  certain  dispositions  of  mind,  certain 
phases  of  personality,  may  draw  in  for  the 
moment  from  that  energy  a  fuller  vitalizing 
stream. 

Among  these  "dispositions  of 
mind"  faith  or  trust  is  essential,  and 
its  highest  manifestation  is  prayer, 
whether  spoken  or  silent.    One  of  the 

^  Human  Personality  and  Its  Survival  of  Bodily  Death, 
U    Vol.  I.,  p.  219. 

80 


Jfaitb 

most  perplexing  problems  of  the 
higher  life  is  the  ineflFectiveness  of  so 
many  prayers.  How  often  do  people 
complain  that  they  have  prayed  for 
years  with  little  or  no  spiritual  satis- 
faction, no  sense  of  being  laid  hold 
of  by  some  one  or  something  greater 
than  themselves.  But  we  may  well 
ask  what  is  here  meant  by  prayer. 
Is  it  an  attempt  to  obtain  from  the 
supreme  Spirit  some  boon,  spiritual  or 
material,  apart  from  all  conditions, 
and,  as  it  were,  by  a  stroke  of  magic? 
Is  it  the  cry  of  an  undisciplined  soul 
driven  to  despair  in  an  hour  of  extreme 
need,  and  surrendering  itself  to  the 
wild  impulse  to  seek  help  from  a 
Power  up  till  then  ignored?  Such 
thoughts  argue  a  crude  and  childish 
notion  of  prayer.  For  this  act  of  the 
soul  is  no  exception  to  the  universal 
reign  of  law.     Not  only  does  a  man 


81 


faitb 

need  God,  but  also  God  needs  him, 
that  prayer  may  have  its  perfect 
work.  It  is  through  our  best  and 
noblest  inspirations  that  the  divine 
activity  achieves  its  purposes  within 
us,  and  this  very  achievement  is  the 
answer  to  our  prayer.  But  the  divine 
activity  is  inhibited  or  hindered  in 
proportion  as  we  indulge  in  emotions 
that  are  incompatible  with  that  trust 
which  gives  to  faith  its  dynamic  value. 
A  mind  obsessed  with  fear,  or  driven 
by  the  demon  of  jealousy,  or  dis- 
tracted by  an  unholy  passion,  or  held 
in  the  grip  of  hate  and  anger,  is  in- 
capable of  real  prayer,  as  long  as  these 
mental  states  continue,  for  it  is  un- 
able to  yield  itself  to  a  power  that 
knows  no  fear,  no  vindictive  impulse, 
no  hatred;  that  is,  on  the  contrary, 
the  living  Love  that  wills  the  happi- 
ness  of   every   creature.     Let  these 

82  •: — '       " 

I  =1- 


faitb 

negative  thoughts  and  feelings  give 
place  to  their  opposites — thoughts  and 
feelings  that  unify  and  enlarge  the 
soul,  and  at  once  the  sealed-up  foun- 
tain of  divine  energy  is  released  and 
man  allies  himself  with  God  and  be- 
comes with  Him  the  creator  of  spir- 
itual reality  which  has  its  echo  even 
in  the  material  universe.  No  man 
need  remain  in  hell,  the  hell  created 
by  his  own  sinister  and  dark  imagin- 
ings. He  can  rise  to  any  heaven  of 
inner  peace  and  harmony  he  desires, 
and  when  he  chooses  so  to  rise  all 
the  nobler  forces  of  the  universe  con- 
spire to  help  him  upward.  It  is  this 
faith  that  can  transfigure  the  saddest 
shame  and  the  blackest  despair  and 
turn  the  last  weakness  of  life  into 
victorious  strength. 

THB    END 


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